Cold Comfort
by Anna Catherine
Summary: Sydney visits Sark in his cell and reflects on her emotions about her mother, while leaving herself vulnerable to Sark. Consider it a missing scene.


Title: Cold Comfort  
Ship: Syd/Sark cause I can't think of anything else  
Rated:PG-13  
Summary: Sydney visits Sark in his cell and reflects on her emotions about her mother, while leaving herself vulnerable to Sark. Consider it a missing scene.  
Timeline: Somewhere between Episode 3x22- "Resurrection" and Episode 4x1- "Authorized Personnel".  
Disclaimer: No I don't own them. I wish I did cause they'd have cold, hard, passionate sex in every freaking episode. Oh JJ how I resent you!

Cold Comfort  


Sydney tilted the metal chair back on it's heel. She noticed it was surprisingly heavier than she had anticipated but it pushed against the brick walls delicately, fastening her in the spot. The smile lines on her face creased as she grinded her teeth together. She stared at the sight in front of her. Sark's back pressed against the brick wall. The palm of his hand, along with his fingertips, traced patterns on the cement floor. She could only imagine he was mapping some far off place, a country he had visited once or twice.

Sark listened to the sound of her breathing, counting the spaces between intakes and exhales of air. His eyes shuffled across the room that had become his cage; black bars, gray cement flooring and brick walls. She was the only color that stood out; his own flesh had begun to blend in. The pink of her skin flashed a light across his eyes as he looked towards her, only for a second, not wanting to seem interested in her presence. He closed his eyes, his head pressing against bricks, neck cramping.

She choked out a noise, not anything distinct but enough of a noise for him to shoot his eyes open, roll his head along the bricks to an angle better suited to gaze at her, loosely of course, never out of interest or concern. He was a cold-blooded killer, feelings didn't enter the picture. Lauren was dead. Sydney was alive, wrestling with something she wanted to tell him. He could see it, focusing in on intensity in her eyes although he wouldn't be the first to speak, he still gave her a look that was somehow reassuring.

Sydney wasn't sure how he did that. A man who had tried to kill her on numerous occasions, who was in fact, wanted, in several, if not more countries, could shock her with a rather caring look that was mingled with a certain fascination. The cords of her heart and soul pulled easily against her flesh and bones, converging within her as she fought back the urge to cry in front of the one person who would laugh at her tears.

Sark knew Sydney didn't know him, that her thoughts about him were clear but not correct, maybe brought out of pure jealously as to his relationship with her mother or the fact that he quite often went after people she loved but he was not as easily read as she believed him to be. He wouldn't have laughed at her, maybe smirked a little since emotions were not something he had learned to express or show in his years with Irina as she did not think highly of anyone that showed weakness.

Sydney had seen something in him he had not ever been willing to show an enemy, even someone as talented and beautiful as she was. It wasn't something he had been eager to illustrate. It was swiped from him while she wore his lover's face and whispered words that clung to him like a damp knife. A vulnerable side to his always hardened exterior. Then the mask was off and he was face to face with an angry, hostile, loathsome Ms. Agent Bristow. Although he couldn't help but laugh at her own viciousness since it reminded him so much of the woman who had taught him everything he knew about cruelty.

He broke himself out of his thoughts, remembering the choking sound she'd made only seconds or minutes before. He noticed that her hair was shorter and wondered when she'd cut it; then scolded himself for knowing such a small detail of her features with such accuracy.

Sydney twirled a strand of hair in between her fingertips, sliding her eyes across him again. His hands no longer crossed the floor with his palms but remained loosely to his side. He looked contemplative but she couldn't comprehend him thinking about anything but himself and laughed a little. The laugh passed along quickly as his eyes met hers, deadly enough to slice goose bumps all across her skin. Sydney almost felt she should apologize, scolded like a child with just one look, something he no doubt learned from her mother.

The words she was biting to get out, stung her lips. Her eyes whisked themselves away from him and stared at the floor, ringing her hands together. Her mother's face appeared in her mind, a dead, cold face that would be eaten by the earth and time. Sydney's heart began to pound, faster, while the seconds ticked by, knowing that Sark was waiting for something. The thing she had come there to say or do and yet she found herself stumbling over the words in her brain.

Finally the silence ceased and he broke his oath of not being the first to speak while still not wanting her to feel she had the upper hand, in anything. Sark realized he would get nothing out of her unless he pushed. "Agent Bristow what brings you to my neck of the woods?" he questioned easily. His accent jumped from crisp to hard. Sydney could hear the annoyance in his voice and found herself questioning more and more why she had come to him. Not Vaughn or Weiss but him, Sark. A deadly assassin. She shook it off as just a connection to her mother while rolling her shoulders back and breathing softly into the dead cool air.

Sark suspected it wouldn't take her long to answer watching her body relax and looking somewhat relieved that he had broken the silence that had been resting on their whole encounter. He started to think that a glass of wine would calm her restless mind down and he craved a glass as well, not having had one for months, now. All his sophistication was subjected to never ending torture for information and his meals consisted of milk and stale food that had no remaining taste left to its name.

Sydney looked up at him, determined to get the words out. Her eyes glassy from hollow tears ready to make their way to the surface. "Irina… my mother…" she paused glancing towards him. His eyes fastened to her, watching her so closely it made her even more nervous, more confused. His eyes pressed her to continue. "My father killed her." She finished, running a sweat-stained hand through her hair, letting her hand drop when it hit her collarbone.

A camera twisted on its edge to get a closer look at Sark who had stood up, pacing the cell. His arms hanging across his back, bouncing as he walked. He moved to the bars of the cell, inches away from her. He had no distinct smell, not anymore. There was no whiff of expensive cologne. All she could smell was soap and the scent of toothpaste. It didn't smell like him although she'd never admit to knowing his smell, as he would deny knowing what exact perfume she wore.

"You believe that Ms. Bristow?" Sark questioned. His eyes burning holes into her eye sockets. She looked away from him, down the hall wondering if anyone would catch her here, shaking, talking to a murderer. Her neck cramped in a slow nod of yes and he began to laugh, mercilessly. His sides began to ache from the strain of muscles he was using to laugh. Sydney scoffed out a noise, desperately wanting to strangle him. Her body pressed against the metal chair, feet still raised slightly from the ground. "Sydney," and it was the first time she'd heard him address her with her first name without them being in a situation where he was capable of killing her.

A simple softness wavered over his voice. This, of course intrigued her, causing her to look up at him, not favoring the advantage he had of looking down on her. She was too torn, emotional to let herself care for any long period of time. Her name echoed off the walls of the basement, scattering down the hallway, _Sydney, Sydney, Sydney _even bouncing with his heavy accent. Her eyes showed him a certain slip of remorse for a loved one and he held back another fit of laughter knowing this time it would not go by without difficulty.

"Are you careless enough to get killed by Agent Bristow?" he asked and the question hung between them like a blanket, advancing them closer to one another in a simple silence of the minds. The thoughts to the query swirled around in her head. Sark noticed the flicker of her eyelashes when she was thinking too hard, trying not to spit out tears. The way her hands were tinted with her own sweat. He shook his head out of some sort of pity for a woman who held so much power and still did not know what to do with it. Sydney was more human than he was but she had the capacity to put her emotions aside and still did not use that ability.

A tear crossed her cheek, sliding down along her lips while she peeked up at him. This was Sark seeing an exposed side to Sydney. It did not frighten him, only made him think a little less of her. She was in fact no different from him where murder was concerned. She killed for something, for someone as he always did. They were not so different although he was not blind or stupid enough to believe for one second that Irina was really dead and killed by Jack Bristow of all people. Irina was smarter than Senior Agent Bristow.

"No," her answer ruined his thoughts. They all came tumbling down in his brain. He crossed his arms and went back to pacing the cell. The image of a tear rolling down her cheek imprinted in his brain. He told himself to always remember this situation if he ever found her pointing a gun at him outside of the cell. He could use it to his advantage, somehow, some way. The soft clicking of the tennis shoes he wore caught her ear as he crossed the floor, causing her to tilt her chin up, waiting for some sort of response from him.

"Then why would you think Irina would be careless enough?" his voice was vacant, filled with no emotion. Sydney wanted him to have some sort of emotion, anything that would make her feel less insane for coming to him for cold comfort. Her shoulders slunk against the wall while she threw her legs out in front of her. The chair hitting cement loudly. She placed her chin into the palm of her right hand and decided there was no way of not telling him she had buried a body, a body just like her mother's.

"I saw the body. I buried it," she responded, now herself empty of emotion. Numb. Sark paused, his feet stopping in his tracks while throwing his head back to glare at the ceiling in frustration. He sighed, placing his hands on top of his head, feeling the soft bumps of his military hair cut, missing his old locks of hair a bit. Sark stood very still, making Sydney nervous and curious as to what his response would be. He was closer to her mother than she had ever been.

He let out a breath of air. "I don't know whose body it was. But it was not Irina's," he responded walking towards the cot at the far side of the cell. Sydney resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Leave it to Sark to be in denial, _what was she thinking coming to him? _ Had she expected him to break down in sobbing tears, claw at his cage? No. Partly she had wanted him to deny it, to tell her all the reasons that person she buried couldn't be her mother, that her father hadn't really killed her. It was too Greek tragedy-like, not adding up to what in reality made sense to her world.

Sark lied down on the cot, crossing his legs and arms underneath his head. He didn't say another word, knowing that he could say nothing more. The thought had never occurred to him that Jack Bristow could even get close enough to Irina at this point to kill her. He smiled a little at the audacity of it and continued to think about whom Irina could've gotten to play a body double, faces roaming around in his head of women he had seen around while during his training. A few names came to mind but nothing distinct or original, no one that stood out. He was positive it was not Irina Sydney had buried and felt the craving to prove it to her, sooner or later once he was out of this silent hellhole.

Sydney stood up from the chair, catching a glimpse of the side of his face before turning her back to him, the curve of his jaw leaving an impression in her mind. She stared down the seemingly endless hallway of flashing fluorescent lights with broken bulbs and wiped the tears from her eyes. Her throat felt dry from lack of new oxygen and a cough escaped the opening of her lips.

"I'm leaving the CIA," and she knew telling him this was jeopardizing her fake mission in the next couple of days. It didn't matter. Sark had no one to tell either way, which made talking to him safer than anyone else. It did occur to her that soon he would be let out of custody, someone would make a bargain for his return to the outside world and she would be hunting him down, wanting greatly to kill him. Now she desired some bitter comfort as distant and far away as it was it was real. The aching inside her heart made that clear.

Sark could see it in her stance as he leaned on his elbow looking at her back. Sydney's awkwardness leaking a memory he'd look back on inside of his own head in the future. He listened to her heels hitting the cement floor and on her tenth step he said, "No you're not". His voice was loud enough for her to stop and listen to the echoing. The corner of her lips curled up, a smile plastered on her face.

"I'll be seeing you again Ms. Bristow." Sark heard the sound of a far away door being shut behind the woman. He cocked his head and body to the side, smiling.

** The End **– unless I decide I like this and continue writing snippets.


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